They don't call Rafa the "King of Clay" for no reason. He has maybe 20 losses on clay, and under 10 losses since he won his first French Open title in 2005. It's very hard to beat Rafa on clay. Furthermore, it's very hard to beat him if you're not ranked in the top 40
There were some hopes that Jeremy Chardy, who upset Juan Martin del Potro, could make a match of it against Rafael Nadal, who has not had that much challenge in his first tournament back since Wimbledon. But it was not to be. Chardy's game was all over the place, as he struggled to take control
Maybe this is a product of my buzzed brain, but hear me out. Rafa has been plagued by tortured knees for years now. He's struggled to play an entire year of tennis. His M.O. has been to play to about the US Open, and then fade through the end of the year. Rafa has won
Rafael Nadal was supposed to come back to play in time for the Australian Open. But he claimed he had the flu or some similar disease, and so without the capability of making a serious run at the Australian Open, he chose to skip it, and make a more low-key return to the tour. Vina
It's now been 7 months or so since we last saw Rafa play a real match. Last match was the shocking loss to Lukas Rosol. Rosol turned out not to be all that, but for one day, when Rafa wasn't feeling his best, Rosol went ballistic. Rafa announced shortly afterwards that his knees were bothering
At the end of Day 1, the US looked to be in great shape to sweep the Brazilians. Sam Querrey beat Bellucci more easily than expected backed up by great serving. John Isner also had a solid win over Thiago Alves, ranked about 140. Most felt that the Bryan brothers would seal the deal with
Perhaps, on the conclusion of the US doubles match in the first round Davis Cup tie between US and Brazil, a match that made it to 7 hours and involved a rare feat, a defeat of the Bryan brothers, by the veteran duo of Melo and Soares. The Brazilian duo lack the credentials of the
Tennis pundits, who make their living writing about tennis, then probably watch more football than tennis, often fret that the best players don't play Davis Cup. They claim the reason is the scheduling which usually starts a week after a Slam (the Australian Open, Wimbledon, the US Open, and the year-end championship). Most players that
When Nadal started his ascendancy to the top of tennis, he provided a foil to Roger Federer's tennis. Roger Federer was offense to Nadal's defense. Nadal didn't play pure defense, but if you tried to hit him off the court, he'd come up with an amazing shot to defend. Like a cornered animal, Nadal was
I'll spend time in this article talking about the tactics used in this match as well as observations. Much like the US Open, which was played in windy conditions, Andy Murray decided to play a lot of balls up the middle slightly to the Djokovic backhand. At the US Open, he did this for several
